The back story on how the third version of director Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi film came to be. Hint: commerce trumped art!
In 1989 a Warner Brothers executive, going through the vaults, came across a 70-millimeter print of Mr. Scott’s original cut. In May 1990 the print was lent to a Los Angeles theater showing a festival of 70-millimeter films. Fans lined up around the block. The same thing happened when two art houses screened it in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Sensing a windfall, Warner Brothers announced the release of a director’s cut and brought in Mr. Scott. It was a rush job — much of the deleted footage couldn’t be found — but it was closer to what he had intended.
In 2000 Mr. Scott announced that he was working on a multidisc set that would include a polished director’s cut. But the project collapsed when the Mr. Yorkin and Mr. Perenchio wouldn’t transfer the rights.
This refusal was widely attributed to lingering bitterness. Mr. Yorkin, speaking by telephone from Los Angeles, denied that. “It’s just there was no reason for another release,” he said. “We needed an idea that would make it an event.”
Last year they realized the film’s 25th anniversary was coming up. “That was an idea we could hook it on,” Mr. Yorkin said. A deal was struck with Warner Brothers. The project was revived.
Mr. de Lauzirika plowed through 977 boxes and cans of film, stored mainly in a Burbank warehouse, and found the missing pieces — including the complete unicorn scene — along with several discs’ worth of material for DVD special features. And the technical experts restored the picture to a level of detail that would have been impossible a few years earlier.
“In many ways,” Mr. de Lauzirika said, “the delay actually helped. So all headaches aside, it’s hard to be bitter. I’m actually quite grateful.”
Blade Runner is one of my favourite dystopian movies of all time. That helped make it a cult favourite but hurt its mainstream box office appeal:
When “Blade Runner” came out in June 1982 it received mixed reviews and lost money. The summer’s big hit was “E. T.,” Steven Spielberg’s tale of a cute alien phoning home from the tidy suburbs. Few wanted to watch a movie that implied the world was about to go drastically downhill.
“Here we are 25 years on,” Mr. Scott said, “and we’re seriously discussing the possibility of the end of this world by the end of the century. This is no longer science fiction.”